


Is It a Tiefling Thing?

by enkelimagnus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abuse, Character Death, Child Abuse, Cold, Cults, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hurt/Comfort, I have no idea how to tag this so please feel free to let me know, Just a Pile of Headcanons held together by a string, Molly's Relationship With Hot Baths, Mollymauk Tealeaf's Backstory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Pre-Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast, blood sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/pseuds/enkelimagnus
Summary: The stone table in the forest is warmed by the sun of the day, and even if it’s always night time, it’s still warmer than the cell, and it helps. It helps make it a little easier, make the cuts hurt a little less.It helps because he can close his eyes, right before they cut him, and he can try and curl up into that warmth and imagine it’s the sun against his skin, imagine it’s freedom and warmth and that that’s how he usually is.---------------Molly, Lucien, and the ones before them all had a complicated relationship to warmth. Here are three flashbacks and a scene illustrating that.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Is It a Tiefling Thing?

**Author's Note:**

> I made this backstory up for a rp of mine and now I'm in love with it and I forever want to write Molly this way!
> 
> Please let me know if I should add tags!
> 
> Hope you enjoy this!

_ He shudders. The cell is damp and dark and so cold he can see his breath coming out of his chest in little clouds. He’s used to it, the cell is always cold, and he’s always cold. The only times he feels warmth are when they take him out of the cell to use him. _

_ The stone table in the forest is warmed by the sun of the day, and even if it’s always night time, it’s still warmer than the cell, and it helps. It helps make it a little easier, make the cuts hurt a little less.  _

_ It helps because he can close his eyes, right before they cut him, and he can try and curl up into that warmth and imagine it’s the sun against his skin, imagine it’s freedom and warmth and that that’s how he usually is.  _

_ It’s usually over before he’s entirely warm. The cold humid ground of the cell feels brutal against his skin when they throw him back in.  _

_ He curls up on himself as they put the shackles back on his legs. He wonders why they bother, it’s not like he’s going to run anyway. He’s too tired, too cold, too hungry for it. As usual, they put a bit of food on the ground next to him. It’s a wooden bowl filled with a strange gruel, cold and tasteless but he eats it anyway. He’s so hungry.  _

_ They always feed him right after they cut him. He needs to stay alive for them, to stay useful. He understands that. He knows he’s only useful as long as he’s alive, and that they’ll kill him when he’s too weak. That’s what happened to the other tiefling that was with him before.  _

_ He knows, deep down, that it was his mother. But she didn’t remember she had a child. She just knew he was there in the cell with her every day. Her skin was littered with the red marks. He tried counting them but new ones appeared regularly. He doesn’t have any yet. He doesn’t know why.  _

_ He falls asleep shivering, the way he usually does. He doesn’t know how long it is until the next time he’s pulled out of the cell by the humans.  _

_ They are chanting louder than usual, there are also more of them than usual.  _

_ They bring him to the stone table in the woods, as usual, but this time, they put shackles on him. Usually, he just lays there and curls up in the warmth and they just cut once or twice and it’s done. Tonight, it’s different.  _

_ Panic sets in and he tries to fight against the shackles but he can’t, he’s too weak. They chant louder and louder and they start cutting. Once. Twice. Thrice. And it doesn’t stop. They don’t stop, even as he begs them too, even as he cries in pain and fear.  _

_ The last thing he sees is that one of the moons in the sky is red like blood. _

_ \-------------------- _

_ He’s exhausted and he doesn’t know where to go. His feet are covered in blisters and cuts, smaller than the ones of the knife. He’s got a coin in his hand, something he stole, and all he wants is to eat, and sleep, and make sure he never ever sees them again. It’s been hours. _

_ He approaches a village, and prays there’s an inn, and that they will let him stay. The night is still dark. He stumbles up to the door and walks in. No one is eating in the main hall, no patron is drinking. It must be late. He has no idea. He doesn’t know how time passes. All he knows is the dark. _

_ There’s a human woman behind the counter and he almost walks away. He doesn’t trust humans, he can’t trust them. They are evil and violent and ugly. A tall woman with green skin and tusks walks in from a small door and goes to stand next to the human. The tall one kisses the other’s cheek. It’s soft and it’s loving. That one is not human.  _

_ He stands in the doorway, shivering. The interior is warm and brown and golden and he doesn’t know if he’s allowed in such a place.  _ Dirty, good for nothing devil spawn. Deserves only to rot in a cage.  _ The words assault him. He takes a step back. _

_ “Hey there,” the tusk-bearing one says. “You need help?” She’s obviously worried, and he realizes he must look horrible, covered in dirt and blood and naked. He takes a step back again. He’s  _ naked.  _ That’s bad.  _

_ The two women exchange a look and the human steps closer to him. He makes a scared noise and moves back again. _

_ “She’s not going to hurt you,” the one with the tusks says. “I promise.” _

_ He can’t look at the human, but the other is okay. He swallows. _

_ “I… I have money. I just want a room. And food. I’ll be quiet, I promise.” His voice is croaky and it hurts to speak but it works. _

_ The one with the tusks nods. “Do you want a bath too? And some clothes?” _

_ Bath? He nods before he can even comprehend what that means. The one with the tusks stays close to him while the human stays at the entrance. They seem to have gathered he’s afraid of her. He wants to say sorry but he’s paralyzed. _

_ The tall one pretty much carries him into a big wooden bathtub, the water almost smoking and filled with suds. His tail hits the water first and it’s… it’s hot. _

_ He raises an eyebrow and lowers himself into the water. It’s like the stone table after a particularly hot day, but even warmer. It wraps around him, seeps into him, and he’s never felt like this before. He feels so good he wants to cry.  _

_ He’s never been this warm before. For as long as he can remember, he was cold, freezing, shaking. And now…  _

_ They  _ kept him cold,  _ he realizes. It was on  _ purpose.  _ They knew he would be so happy in the warmth. They knew he would feel so much better in the warmth and they kept him in the cold anyway.  _

_ His lips curl back and he hisses at nothing, at the water, at them. They will pay. They will pay for keeping him in the cold all this time. They will pay for taking that away from him. He doesn’t care about the lack of food, or the mistreatment, or the cutting, no. Nothing is worse in his mind at this moment than the lack of warmth. _

_ When the tusk bearing woman comes back with a plate of food and some clean clothes, he turns to her. His smile is vicious, he knows it, he doesn’t care. _

_ He asks her one question. _

_ “Do you know where I can buy a sword?”  _

_ \--------------------------------------- _

_ The tall Barbarian woman that has been stuck to his side like glue since she first saw him is the first to join him in the bath. The show is over and it’s been raining all night. Mollymauk hates the rain and how it makes his body feels. He’s mostly submerged in the hot water when it moves as she sits. _

_ They stay silent for a while. Molly’s bad at talking. He only talks to her, and mostly because she doesn’t ever leave him alone. The rest gets nods and stares and he’s developed a language that allows him to communicate without having to talk. Talking hurts and it’s terrifying and he hates the voice that comes out of his mouth when he does so. He doesn’t know that voice, it’s ugly and foreign and he has an accent and he doesn’t know where it’s from. His voice is a stranger’s voice. _

_ Well, he doesn’t only talk to Yasha, he talks to the Moonweaver too, but that’s different, because she’s a Goddess. Maybe the tall barbarian Yasha is a Goddess too. It wouldn’t be too surprising to Molly. _

_ “Is it a tiefling thing?” Yasha asks after a while. “You’re always the first in a hot bath, and always the closest to the fire.”  _

_ Molly shrugs. He doesn’t know. He’s never really met another tiefling. He’s seen a few from afar at shows, but he’s never talked to them. He knows he’s a tiefling because Gustav told him, and because some angry people told him too, at a tavern one night, when he was drinking after a long day.  _

_ “I don’t know,” he croaks out. It’s the answer Yasha usually gets when she asks him something. _

_ “Either way, you look happy when you’re warm.”  _

_ Molly smiles a little. She’s not wrong. He’s happy when he’s warm, happiest he can be at least. He sleeps better when wrapped in Yasha’s arms or in a thick blanket. He refuses to sleep unless he has a blanket or Yasha. Even when it’s hot in the summer. He’d rather be tired than be uncovered when he sleeps. _

_ “Thank you,” he whispers. _

_ The twins enter the tent with the bath and both of them fall silent. Their words are only for each other. And Molly likes it that way, for now.  _

_ \--------------------- _

Mollymauk opens his eyes. He’s fallen asleep in the bath again. The water is still warm, though not the burning hot it was when he got in. He’s pretty sure his entire being is warm now, warmer than usual.

He thought, for a long time, that it was a tiefling thing. That he loved warmth so much because of that. But then he met Jester. And Jester, though she loves a good bath, doesn’t need the warmth the way he does. He’s pretty sure she’s also actually cold resistant. He’s not. 

He’s fire resistant. He usually slips into burning hot water with only a sigh of happiness and relief. Everyone else in the group hisses and waits for it to cool a little. 

Across from him, a pair of legs slide into the water. Red hair and freckles decorate them and as the man lowers himself in the water, Molly smiles a little as Caleb’s face comes into view. The human wets his hair and face. His hair is long, and it looks darker now that it’s wet, dark copper strands stuck to his pale freckled skin. 

“Long day studying?” Molly asks, as he sees the man keep his hands under the water, with little rolling motions of his wrists. Molly has noticed he does that when he writes a lot and his wrists are tight with work. 

Caleb hums. “Many spells to learn,” he mutters. “A lot of research to do, too.” 

Molly nods. “Good.”

They fall silent. It reminds Molly of the early days of him and Yasha at the Carnival. He smiles a little. She’s gone chasing her storms again, and he misses her. He always misses her when she leaves him.

It’s hard to sleep some days without her. When he wakes up suffocating on ghost earth and he can’t exactly tell Fjord or anyone else. They’re not very good at comforting him after a nightmare, not in the way Yasha is. Jester’s too loud, Beau’s too awkward, and none of them touch him enough. 

Sometimes, he gets into a bath and washes the phantom cold and dirt. Sometimes, he goes out and tries to find someone who will touch him, even if it’s not exactly in the way he needs. It’s a complicated balance but he manages. 

“You take a lot of baths,” Caleb says after a while. “More than any of us.” 

“And you don’t take enough, my friend,” Molly replies, teasing. 

Caleb huffs. “I’m getting better.”

Molly nods and it’s silent again for a while. He does take a lot of baths. He can afford it, so it’s not a problem for anyone if the first thing he does whenever they reach a new city is dash to a bathhouse or ask the innkeepers for a tub. 

“Why do you take so many baths?” Caleb asks again after a while. Molly knows he won’t stop asking. He doesn’t actually mind as much as he pretends to.

“Why don’t you?” 

“People look at you less when you’re dirty,” Caleb shrugs. “I don’t like people looking at me.” There’s more hanging around his words, the little details Molly has noticed, the long sleeves and the wraps around his arms and the way he never lets anyone see him naked. 

“An answer for an answer, then. I hate being cold. Baths are hot.” 

Caleb nods. “That makes sense.” 

Molly is glad the line of questioning seems to end there. He just lets himself sink deeper and deeper into the water and closes his eyes again. He trusts that Caleb will wake him up if he falls asleep once more.

Warm and safe and with friends, Mollymauk lets himself close his eyes and float away.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
